ebike4healthandfitness said:
Here is a $527 free shipping ebike with both twist throttle and pedal assist:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ecotric-26-In-36V-350W-Electric-City-Bicycle-e-Bike-Removable-Battery-7-Speed-Pedal-Assist-White/244737937
Exposed wires so it should be easy to service too.
Seriously why even buy a kit?
In my direct observation, most really cheap commercial e-bikes aren't worth the additional effort required to repair them when they fail, which they do early and often. The folks who buy them are overwhelmingly of the helpless/feckless variety, and are unable/unwilling to do their own maintenance.
This is why you should buy a kit instead. Because it's designed to be easy to install, it's by extension easy to maintain. It won't feature the kind of extreme cost-cutting features that make routine maintenance a serious problem.
Example:
Ancheer e-bikes (a very popular brand because they are very cheap) don't have an accessible motor disconnect plug. When you get a rear flat (which you will), you have to do the repair with the wheel on a ~1 foot long tether. The wheel is pretty heavy, which complicates doing that if you're not already good at it. It has too-thick spokes, so it needs more frequent truing than a more normal wheel.
You can't remove the wheel for truing without disassembling the battery enclosure to get at the controller, and then unplugging the motor inside it. Will the buyer do this stuff? Absolutely not. Nor will he bring in the bike for professional attention until it stops running completely.
My roommate works at another bike shop, and they turn away Ancheer bikes without examination. They're always a losing proposition. I'm sure the Walmart POS you linked would easily qualify for the same policy.
In buying one of these rolling disasters, a low-information consumer might pay about the same as a decent conversion kit, but what they'll get is something that really only lasts until the first major problem. There are very limited circumstances in which that would be a worthy bargain.
